Argument outside council meeting nearly erupts in blows

Trentonian photo/Jackie Schear
Trenton Police Director Ralph Rivera, Jr., left, and Business Administrator Sam Hutchinson listen to Mayor Tony Mack at the City Council Meeting Tuesday. Rivera’s chief of staff had to help break up a near brawl outside the council chambers.

TRENTON — An altercation between a city contractor and a mayor’s aide nearly came to blows during Tuesday night’s Trenton City Council meeting.

Police intervened when an argument grew heated between Roy Sumners, owner of Justin’s Wholesale Carpet and mayoral aide, and former acting business administrator Anthony Roberts.

There weren’t any arrests, and Sumners said they did not have any physical contact. A video showed police standing between the two men, with about 20 feet separating them at the end of the altercation.

Robert Chilson, city activist who runs the Trenton United blog and shot the video, said the two were in each other’s faces and close to a fight.

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Sumners said Roberts got into his face at the height of the argument and thrust his chin out.

“He kept saying ‘Hit me, hit me,’” Sumners said.

Sumners said there hadn’t been any physical contact between the two, and neither had cursed at each other. Roberts did not respond to several calls for comment on this story.

Det. Alexis Durlacher, who was the first to arrive in the hallway, helped escort Sumners from the building, along with Sgt. Adrian Mendez, chief of staff for Police Director Ralph Rivera Jr.

Sumners said he attended the meeting to speak out in support of Tony Mack, after being asked to by the mayor’s brother, Ralphiel Mack. He intended to speak out against a council measure to reduce the mayor’s salary by half, from $126,400 to $60,000, and said he still supports the mayor.

Sumners said the argument began when Sumners approached Roberts during the council meeting to ask why Sumners’ company, which he said had the lowest bid, was not awarded a contract for city work.

Sumners said “That was foul, what you did,” referring to awarding the contract, for carpeting in a learning center on North Clinton Avenue.

Roberts, called “completely unqualified” to evaluate bids by a superior court judge last year, was also the city’s acting business administrator until Sam Hutchinson, the current administrator, took over in April.

Sumners said he has been involved in every step of Mack’s repurposing of four closed city libraries as learning centers; from securing a partnership with Rutgers University; handling staffing at the centers; handling bids, according to Sumners and on one occasion in August, making sure the doors were unlocked.

Sumners said he has been doing work with the city for two decades and never had a problem before this. As recently as two months ago, he was able to secure another carpeting contract with the city.

He said Roberts’ decision on the contract was personal, rather than professional.

“I asked why he would do such a low down thing, his answer was ‘Because I don’t like you, I haven’t liked you since high school and it’s a personal thing. Because I can,” Sumners said.

The two have known each other since they went to high school together in the 1960s, and were in the same junior fraternity.

Sumners said he left the council meeting and Roberts followed into the hallway, where the altercation occurred.

Chilson said Roberts “didn’t do anything to discourage a fight,” when he followed Sumners out of the council chamber.

Shortly after Roberts left, Councilman George Muschal said he could hear the argument from his seat in the council chambers, and Durlacher left the room, followed shortly afterward by Mendez.

“They were going at it pretty good,” Muschal said.

Durlacher split up the two men. On Chilson’s video, she can be seen standing in front of Sumners, with more than a dozen feet and two more City Hall security officers between the two men.

The video, which begins after Durlacher arrived in the hallway, then shows Durlacher and Mendez walk toward the exit with Sumners, while Roberts stays in the hallway.

Sumners said he left the building after the altercation and has not heard anything more from police or the city since. It is unclear whether police also made Roberts leave, although a security officer in the video said they should both go.